I've been writing about technology for most of my adult life, focusing mainly on legal and regulatory issues. I write for a wide range of publications: credits include the Times, Daily Telegraph and Financial Times newspapers, as well as BBC radio and numerous technology titles. Here, I'll be covering the ways content is controlled on the internet, from censorship to online piracy and copyright. You can follow my posts by clicking the '+ Follow' button under my name.

ISPs Slap Customers With 1.3m Copyright Alerts

More than 1.3 million piracy warnings have been issued during the first ten months of the ‘six strikes’ Copyright Alert System (CAS) in the US.

Last February, five internet providers – Comcast, Time Warner Cable, AT&T, Verizon Communications and Cablevision Systems – started sending alerts to customers suspected of illegally sharing or downloading content. These alerts follow a graduated system, starting with a warning and escalating to ‘final mitigation’ – bandwidth throttling, site restriction or educational classes, depending on the ISP.

According to a report from the Center for Copyright Information (CCI), 70 percent of the alerts sent out represented ‘the initial educational stages’ with only three percent leading to final mitigation – although the newness of the scheme means that there must be many more in the pipeline.

“We are encouraged by the initial data from the Copyright Alert System’s first 10 months suggesting that the program has the potential to move the needle in deterring copyright infringement,” says Jill Lesser, executive director of the CCI.

Flag of pirate Edward England Polski (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“Our initial research into consumer attitudes – along with what we have seen in our own data – shows that consumers do respond to this kind of educational system that alerts them to infringing activity on their account and helps them find the content they want easily and legally.”

The CCI now plans to ramp up its activity, saying it will send out twice as many notices over the coming year.

There appear to have been surprisingly few challenges to the notices – just 265 – despite the fact that it only costs $35 to file a defense. Of these, 47 were successful, mostly on the grounds that someone else had accessed the customer’s account without authorization. Again, though, these numbers could rise as time passes and more people progress through the system.

“The CAS’s early data suggests that consumer privacy has been respected and the appeal process, key to the system’s fairness, is working and that users are taking advantage of it when they feel that it is warranted,” says Jerry Berman, a member of the CCI Advisory Board.

The CCI is claiming its figures show that the system is working to prevent piracy. However, it appears to be less effective, at least in its early stages, than similar warning systems abroad. For example, 30 percent of people receiving a first warning in the US went on to receive a second; when France introduced a similar system in 2010, the figure was just nine percent.

Despite this, though, it seems that the French policy – which was eventually dramatically scaled back – actually did little to curb piracy. Users simply switched to less-detectable methods, leading a team of researchers to conclude earlier this year that it had had no substantial deterrent effect.

“In addition, we find evidence that individuals who are better informed about the law and piracy alternatives substitute away from monitored P2P networks and illegally access content through unmonitored channels,” the team concluded.

Nevertheless, similar policies are in place in New Zealand, Taiwan, Ireland and South Korea, and are under consideration elsewhere. Australian attorney-general George Brandis, for example, is currently mulling the relative merits of site blocking and a three-strikes warning system.

Meanwhile, the UK is finalizing a Voluntary Copyright Alert Programme (Vcap) – but again with little in the way of sanctions. According to leaked documents seen by the BBC, it will consist of a series of four letters which don’t even threaten further consequences. There may, though, be a hidden agenda: if the system doesn’t work, rights holders could call for the rapid impementation of the Digital Economy Act, which contains much more draconian measures.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

The last gasps of an industry that refuses to move with the times! It bears repeating yet again that the same people that are pirating are also by and large the ones that spend the most money on TV and movies (and the associated merchandise, no doubt!). They’re heavy consumers and that’s why they won’t wait for movies to hit cinemas or TV series to be broadcast in the UK after the US. They should be finding ways to allow these people to pay reasonable sums for the content they love instead of wasting valuable time and money trying to punish the many for the egregious few who are seriously abusing copyrights…

I can appreciate what the CCI is trying to do, but how does this curtail piracy? Are these letters being sent to the overseas servers in Russia and Switzerland, that are actually hosting the files? I work for a book publishing company, and with one quick search can gain direct download access to a lot of our titles in eBook format. These websites receive cease and desist letters from the likes of Microsoft and continually thumb their nose at them, mocking them publicly on their sites. Sites like the Pirate Bay, who have lost numerous court cases, are still operating like normal. All they do is change domains, and voila, business as usual. I just don’t see how a stern letter from CCI or any ISP for that matter is going to have any impact where it matters, and that’s the servers that are hosting the actual files. Sending a letter to an individual for downloading one file may produce great looking numbers (1.3 million copyright alerts) but if the file itself is still hosted and still available, then the problem still exists.